| Something is really bugging the shit out of me. Since January I've had the worst case of writer's block. I haven't written anything substantial since the last A&C show. To be honest, I haven't done anything truly productive since then, or anything I can really be proud of. The sad thing is that even whilst people around me progressed and wrote, I remained detached and apathetic. I initially blamed it on a spell on senioritis; I felt exhausted, even though I was never really challenged in the first place. But now I can't even make the initiative to write. I'm always trying to validate some excuse in my head for putting things off.
I don't understand it. I love to write. I love to make things. I love to explain things and do things and tell things and fucking preach things. I always have ideas. And I have outlets for them. It's just my fucking lack of initiative.
Adelaide is finished for now. I'm a terrible person and I feel like I caused this shit. I acted like I cared but I really didn't. And now that it feels like we're over, I realize I really do care, and did all along. Jon put so much of himself into Adelaide it's almost fucking rediculous. He would spend hours at home writing new material and bringing it to practice. And when I listened and worked with him and Josh, I told him what sucked and what didn't. And guess what? He would go home and scrap the things that I told him sucked, and he would write new stuff, and it would be so fucking amazing. And Josh was a mess. An emotional, moody, fucking stubborn mess. But he tried to damn hard. Jon would bring the most crazy, off-the-wall stuff and Josh would sit there for a few minutes and just say, "Fuck no." But with enough coaxing, he would start to give it a go. Josh went from a straight 4-4 rock beat, blind 182 drummer to a seasoned, tasteful, versatile maniac on the kit. Jon would always come to practice telling me "Josh is going to kill me for this one. He's never going to figure it out." But he always fucking did. And he could take criticism and listen. If something sucked, he would change it. The reason I say that Josh "tried" is because everything began to wane.
Early January, we took a break. Josh had just been kicked out of his house, and we hadn't seen each other nor practiced in weeks. Jon and I went over there when his parents weren't home and told him we wanted to talk with him. Josh shows up stoned and bright red from crying. He walks in and sits down in a chair and starts bawling. This is the first time I've ever seen him cry, and he's really fucking going at it. We get around to talking and discussing things, and he tells us how he hasn't talked to his parents in weeks, and that he's been smoking all day every day in a desperate attempt to cope. Jon and I console the shit out of him. We tell him we don't want this band to fall apart, and that we care about him. We tell him how much this band means to us and reminded Josh of how much it has meant to him. We tell him that the band can't continue unless he talks to his parents. And he fucking agrees. We have a goddamn band hug. This was the most I've ever felt connected to a group of people, ever.
And then something happened, and I'm not sure really what. I guess it was the thought of college approaching. I applied to colleges with full intentions of attending, yet I toyed around with the idea of staying in town and continuing to play with the band. I don't know why I told Jon and Josh that; It was probably because I knew it was what they wanted to hear. Jon even told me that if I stayed in town, he would do the same in order to keep this band alive. They cared so fucking much about this band. I feel like I never really committed myself or really ever tried because I knew it would eventually end and I'd head off to college.
So after our meeting with Josh, the both of them really buckled down and started writing the best stuff they'd ever written. It was so detailed and complex and so fucking amazing to listen to. Yet I did nothing. I kept telling myself I'd write and really apply myself and contribute and make this band something of my own like Jon and Josh had. But I couldn't find the fucking initiative and just didn't really care. I knew it would end soon and I felt like I could get away with not really trying, ever.
The sad thing is that I loved playing with the band. I lived for the shows we played. I loved expressing the fuck out of myself and I was good at it. I loved the feeling of everything falling exactly into place during a show and becoming so much more than a group of musicians--a fucking band. I worked so hard with Jon and Josh to perfect the music and the timing and the harmonies and the bass lines and fucking everything. It's not like I didn't contribute whatsoever; I did contribute. I just never really did my job as a singer; I never did my homework. I stopped writing lyrics and I stopped trying to form melodies. I just started to BS shit because I felt like I could get away with it. And you know what? I did get away with it--for the most part. Nobody knew that I didn't really care except Jon and Josh and Myself. And that's what's bugging the shit out of me now.
But deep down I really did care. And I really did want to try so badly. And at times I really did try. Something inside of my just feels like I wasted everyone's time. Adelaide could have been so much more than it was if I had tried. I felt fucking terrible this past year because I knew the entire time that I wasn't trying. And now that we're "unofficially" finished, I've been really bummed out. I live for the shows and the music and the connection. And I never ever cared about what other people thought of us. I never did. We played music for ourselves.
This past year has been a curse. Writing is impossible. Even now, as I sit here and try so fucking hard to write, there's just no initiative and no creative spark. Especially now that I have this fucking weight on my mind.
Music is an art, not a chore or a business. Then again, it's whatever you make it out to be.
I vow to try again. |
